The last 48 hours have been very hectic. I haven’t had a wink of sleep since around 10 am Wednesday. The tipoff said arrests are going to be made in connection with some corporate espionage racket involving petroleum ministry officials, peons, drivers, paanwallahs, chaiwallahs, doodhwallahs, safaiwallahs and some chhota-mota executives of big oil companies. I was assured that I won’t be arrested, nor my supplier of weed and charayam, who does his business in the bylanes of Lutyens’ Delhi, out of servant quarters of ministers, bureaucrats, Army officers. But I was warned to cover my tracks, just in case some sub-inspector types, with an extra inch of spine, decided to take on his superiors and juniors to arrest an innocent jasoos.
This room on the 20th floor of a highrise overlooking the ministries is my decoy office. All the tracks, if there are any left, will lead here. The office is registered in the name of a consultancy, a whole owned subsidiary of a company registered in Cayman Islands, which is in turn promoted by a firm registered in Tuvalu, a fast sinking island country, and that firm is run by two other firms registered in some Caribbean islands, names of which I have forgotten… By the time the Delhi Police, SIT, CBI, ED, Revenue Intelligence get an approval to travel all these places, a few of these islands might have already sunk due to global warming. The point is I am safe. All documents of any worth have already been shifted to another secret location, the details of which I am not authorized to reveal.
"Kutty, everything under control," Sara barged in, "Where are the tables and chairs? What have you done to this place? This now ****ing looks like the Sabarmati ashram."
"Oh this, I couldn’t take a risk. Any small fragment could lead them to us, you know."
"But we have already covered the tracks."
"Can’t take any risk. I wiped off all fingerprints, strands of hair, yours BTW, this is why I always say you should go hairless like me. I just don’t trust this DNA business. Have you also cleaned the tyre tracks? There are times old tricks come handy and all this electronic snooping fails."
"Kutty why did it all this happen? What was the need for these arrests?"
"Yeah, especially when these things have been happening since time immemorial."
"What do you feel? Were you the target?"
"Not at all. There could be other factors at play, we need not worry."
"You never told me, but I always wanted to know who buys all this information."
"Information is key to everything. All kinds of information. Canteen tender details, ministers and bureaucrats’ food habits, sleeping patterns, sex lives, policy papers. There is a market out there for every bit of information," I said pointing at the Mangal bazaar, the Tuesday flea market.
"Don’t tell me, your clients visit the Mangal bazaar to buy information," Sara exclaimed, "Never knew this was happening around me when I was buying bhindi-baingan."
"This I learnt from my guru Sherlock Holmes. You go unnoticed in the middle of a crowd, if you play the part. I always trade the secrets in Mangal and Budh bazaars, where nobody expects me to do it."
"But I never see you do it."
"Sleight of hand, darling. Your boss is a magician. We exchange identical subji ka thailis. Almost impossible to spot."
Sara‘s eyes beamed with respect for me.
"You are always hiding things from me. Tell me more. What kind of information would a big corporate or a foreign spy want? Definitely not information about doodhwallahs."
"It depends on the people spied upon. Everyone has a chink in the armour. Suppose a woman minister got a silicon implant years ago, and nobody knows about it, and I get the details, just imagine."
"Oh, I see."
"Can she risk a headline that says ‘MINISTER’S BOOB JOB EXPOSED’?"
"I doubt it," Sara agreed, "Essentially you are a blackmailer."
"Don’t put it that bluntly. We do other work also."
"Like what, film them in the bed."
"Of course we do that, but we do more than that. Sometimes the corporates hire people to watch spies hired by them. Are they trading secrets with their rivals too? Stuff like that."
"OK. So who is your client."
"See this kind of work doesn’t interest me. Practically everybody knows about the ministers and their tastes. And these days you don’t have to spy on them. They tweet their innermost thoughts without knowing it. And if you don’t sneak out documents, the chances are the ministers’ agents will hunt you down to trade information. After all this business benefits both corporates and the political leaders."
"Then who do you spy for?"
"A recent study by a few learned men in the business revealed some shocking details that got the top leadership worried."
"OK."
"And when people are worried, they start thinking."
"OK."
"The study said, the government was virtually like a public facebook page. Everybody knew what was happening inside the government and around the government. But the flow of information was mostly one way. The government knew nothing much about the corporate leaders. The information reaching them was already vetted by spies who are by now closer to the corporates than their own pay masters."
"Too confusing. What does it mean essentially?"
"It means I am part of Mission India Inc which spies on Corporate India for some sections in the government of India."
I have already said too much, the rum makes me brag. Like the Coast Guard DIG who claims to have ordered the hit on a Pakistani terror boat.
This room on the 20th floor of a highrise overlooking the ministries is my decoy office. All the tracks, if there are any left, will lead here. The office is registered in the name of a consultancy, a whole owned subsidiary of a company registered in Cayman Islands, which is in turn promoted by a firm registered in Tuvalu, a fast sinking island country, and that firm is run by two other firms registered in some Caribbean islands, names of which I have forgotten… By the time the Delhi Police, SIT, CBI, ED, Revenue Intelligence get an approval to travel all these places, a few of these islands might have already sunk due to global warming. The point is I am safe. All documents of any worth have already been shifted to another secret location, the details of which I am not authorized to reveal.
"Kutty, everything under control," Sara barged in, "Where are the tables and chairs? What have you done to this place? This now ****ing looks like the Sabarmati ashram."
"Oh this, I couldn’t take a risk. Any small fragment could lead them to us, you know."
"But we have already covered the tracks."
"Can’t take any risk. I wiped off all fingerprints, strands of hair, yours BTW, this is why I always say you should go hairless like me. I just don’t trust this DNA business. Have you also cleaned the tyre tracks? There are times old tricks come handy and all this electronic snooping fails."
"Kutty why did it all this happen? What was the need for these arrests?"
"Yeah, especially when these things have been happening since time immemorial."
"What do you feel? Were you the target?"
"Not at all. There could be other factors at play, we need not worry."
"You never told me, but I always wanted to know who buys all this information."
"Information is key to everything. All kinds of information. Canteen tender details, ministers and bureaucrats’ food habits, sleeping patterns, sex lives, policy papers. There is a market out there for every bit of information," I said pointing at the Mangal bazaar, the Tuesday flea market.
"Don’t tell me, your clients visit the Mangal bazaar to buy information," Sara exclaimed, "Never knew this was happening around me when I was buying bhindi-baingan."
"This I learnt from my guru Sherlock Holmes. You go unnoticed in the middle of a crowd, if you play the part. I always trade the secrets in Mangal and Budh bazaars, where nobody expects me to do it."
"But I never see you do it."
"Sleight of hand, darling. Your boss is a magician. We exchange identical subji ka thailis. Almost impossible to spot."
Sara‘s eyes beamed with respect for me.
"You are always hiding things from me. Tell me more. What kind of information would a big corporate or a foreign spy want? Definitely not information about doodhwallahs."
"It depends on the people spied upon. Everyone has a chink in the armour. Suppose a woman minister got a silicon implant years ago, and nobody knows about it, and I get the details, just imagine."
"Oh, I see."
"Can she risk a headline that says ‘MINISTER’S BOOB JOB EXPOSED’?"
"I doubt it," Sara agreed, "Essentially you are a blackmailer."
"Don’t put it that bluntly. We do other work also."
"Like what, film them in the bed."
"Of course we do that, but we do more than that. Sometimes the corporates hire people to watch spies hired by them. Are they trading secrets with their rivals too? Stuff like that."
"OK. So who is your client."
"See this kind of work doesn’t interest me. Practically everybody knows about the ministers and their tastes. And these days you don’t have to spy on them. They tweet their innermost thoughts without knowing it. And if you don’t sneak out documents, the chances are the ministers’ agents will hunt you down to trade information. After all this business benefits both corporates and the political leaders."
"Then who do you spy for?"
"A recent study by a few learned men in the business revealed some shocking details that got the top leadership worried."
"OK."
"And when people are worried, they start thinking."
"OK."
"The study said, the government was virtually like a public facebook page. Everybody knew what was happening inside the government and around the government. But the flow of information was mostly one way. The government knew nothing much about the corporate leaders. The information reaching them was already vetted by spies who are by now closer to the corporates than their own pay masters."
"Too confusing. What does it mean essentially?"
"It means I am part of Mission India Inc which spies on Corporate India for some sections in the government of India."
I have already said too much, the rum makes me brag. Like the Coast Guard DIG who claims to have ordered the hit on a Pakistani terror boat.
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